Flowcharts

Previous Knowledge

I had used Flowol at a very young age in my secondary school, so I was aware of its basic purpose and what it consisted of. I found the program was user friendly and everything was clear and concise, and in majority of cases was self-explanatory. I was aware it was a method of programming used to create flowcharts e.g. controlling how equipment responds to sensors.

Current Knowledge

I have developed the basic knowledge that I had off Flowol and created more complex flowcharts with multiple sequences and interations to control various parts of one peice of equipment. I also created a flowchart where there was a ferris wheel which had to various outcomes happening simultaneously and within a sequence. It was quite tricky and first but when I had experimented and moved certain blocks to parts and saw the different outcome, I was able to work out the correct order myself.

Strengths

I can create flowcharts to show different outcomes, I find the program really easy and straight forward to use. It is a topic which I enjoyed as it involved problem, solving using a program which I understood.

Weaknesses

It took me a while to be able to solve the problems and get the flowcharts to work correctly. However, if I spent more time on practicing the different aspects of the program, I feel I would be able to use it more time-effectively.

Lesson Ideas

Initially I would use the mimics already installed as part of Flowol, so that students could get the basic understanding and knowledge of how the program works and what its purpose is.

Click here for more information

logic circuits

Previous Knowledge

I have not used logic circuits previously.

Current Knowledge

The introduction to logic circuits was done through the use of online tutorials on the Logic Gate Simulator website. The task was to go through each individual logic Gate and see what its outcome would be. When the circuit had been connected using the correct gate(s) a truth table had to be produced for each. I found this task very straight foward, because you could always find the correct the answers to each truth table by actually carrying out all the combinations.

Strengths

Although, I had not dealt with logic circuits previously, this was a topic which I found easy and straight forward to understand.

Weaknesses

I could develop my knowledge further by understanding the purpose of the full adder and the half adder and its relation to logic circuits and binary. This was an area part of the topic which I could not understand as there was alot of information to understand regarding the initial logic circuits alone.

Lesson Ideas

Instead of using online tutorials to demostrate the outcomes of the individual circuits, I would look borrowing the equipment from the Science department so that students would be able to work in small groups and be able to demostrate the circuits using the equipment. This would accomodate various learning styles, in particular pupils who have a kinesthetic learning style.

Click here for more information